Every year, around the turn of the calendar, a quiet alternative to the resolution list makes the rounds: pick one word. Not a goal or a target, just a word to carry through the year. “Steady.” “Build.” “Gentle.” “Finish.”
It is easier to carry than a list of ten resolutions, and simple enough to try in an evening. The part that usually goes missing is what happens to the word afterward. A letter can hold it, and come back to you when the year is over.
One word instead of a list
A list of resolutions asks you to remember a dozen things in February. A single word asks you to remember one. It works as a lens more than a rule: when you face a choice, you can ask which option fits the word.
That is also its limit. A word cannot tell you what to do on a busy morning. It can only nudge. So it helps to write down, early, what you mean by it, and where you expect it to be tested. That is what the letter is for.
Choose it in twenty minutes
You do not need a retreat. Spend ten minutes writing down every word that comes to mind when you ask what you want more of this year. Do not edit. Then cross out all but three.
Live with those three for a day. Say each one to yourself when you wake up, when you start work and when you go to bed. Notice which one you keep coming back to, and which one makes you slightly uncomfortable in a useful way. That is usually your word.
If two survive the day, take the one that names what scares you about the year. Comfort picks the other one.
A good test is whether you can use it as a sentence. “This year I want to be more steady” makes sense. “This year I want to be more strategic” may mean nothing to you at all. Pick the one that sounds like something you would say out loud.
Words that tend to work
Words that point to a way of acting tend to be easier to carry than words that point to an outcome. For example:
- Steady, for a year with a lot of change in it.
- Finish, for a year of loose ends.
- Gentle, for a year after a hard one.
- Ask, for a year of speaking up.
- Home, for a year of settling in.
Outcome words, such as “rich” or “thin,” are harder to carry because they depend on things you do not control. Try an action word or a quality word instead.
Write the letter
You write this letter at the same time as you choose the word, so the reasons are fresh. Answer these prompts in your own words, in about a page:
- The word, and why you picked it over the other two.
- The want underneath it: what are you hoping it changes?
- Where it will be tested: name one situation, one person or one month.
- One thing you are saying no to, to make room for it.
- What you hope to be able to say about it a year from now.
For the third prompt, predict the hard spot. If your word is “steady,” the test might be the week your parent moves or the quarter your team changes.
Send it to next January
Choose a date near the start of next year, a few days after the new year has begun. By then the letter has had the whole year to prove itself, and you will read it when you are about to choose a new word.
We email the letter on the date you pick, between 8:00 and noon in your time zone. There are no reminders, so the letter will not nudge you in March. If you want a midyear check, write a second letter for July. One caution for a two-letter year: the unsubscribe link in the July email would also stop the January letter, so leave it alone.
A saved letter cannot be edited or cancelled, so write what you mean on the day.
When the word stops fitting
Somewhere around spring, the word may start to feel wrong. You picked “bold,” and your life is asking you to be careful. You picked “ease,” and a crisis arrives.
Do not treat that as failure. A word that stops fitting is information about your year. Because the letter cannot be changed, the January version stays exactly as you wrote it. When it arrives, you can see the gap between the person who chose the word and the person who lived it, and you can ask what the year was really asking of you.
You are allowed to change your word in the middle of the year. If you do, write a short second letter saying which word you dropped and why. That letter may turn out to be the most honest one in the set.
What the word will not do
A word is not a spell. Choosing “calm” will not make a loud year quiet, and nothing in this practice promises a better year. What it can do is give you a small, steady reference point and a record of how you used it.
The letter makes this honest. You will see what you hoped, what you did and what the word looked like in practice.
A sample letter
Dear future me,
My word for this year is steady. I picked it over bold and light because this is the year we sell the house and move Dad, and I will need to be the one who does not shake. It will be tested in March, when I expect the sale to fall through the first time. I am saying no to extra projects at work. A year from now I hope I can say I kept my voice level and still took the Sunday walks. Tell me how it went.
[your name]
Write it now
Take twenty minutes to choose three words and a day to live with them. When one wins, write the five prompts above, name the place it will be tested, and set the delivery date for a few days into next January. Then let the word do what it can.
